It is well known that in recent years, and in years to come, energy codes for buildings have and will continue to become stricter. This is driven by a desire to reduce the environmental impact of a building as well as to reduce the cost to maintain that building.

One area that many look to when trying to improve a building is in its windows. Older buildings, created decades ago, or longer, were fitted with single pieces of monolithic glass, providing poor insulation. Eventually, IGUs, or insulated glass units, were created to improve insulation. IGUs were created using 2 pieces of glass and a spacer and therefore were much thicker than the original windows. Unfortunately, this meant choosing improved insulation at the sacrifice of the building’s original appearance. Additionally, switching to the IGUs also meant the costly process of ripping out the original window sashes.

Finally, VIG, or Vacuum Insulated Glazing was created to provide the best of both worlds. Pilkington Spacia™ is the first commercially available vacuum insulated glazing product and it provides the thermal insulation of an IGU at the thickness of a standard monolithic piece of glass. Pilkington Spacia™ is now available in North America.